No More Learning

Poem 147.

Perhaps the noblest stanzas in our language.


Poem 148.

_stoure_: dust-storm; _braw_: smart.


Poem 149.

_scaith_: hurt; _tent_: guard; _steer_: molest.


Poem 151.

_drumlie_: muddy; _birk_: birch.


Poem 152.

_greet_: cry; _daurna_: dare not. --There can hardly exist a poem more
truly tragic in the highest sense than this: nor, except Sappho, has any
Poetess known to the Editor equalled it in excellence.


Poem 153.

_fou_: merry with drink; _coost_: carried; _unco skeigh_: very proud;
_gart_: forced; _abeigh_: aside; _Ailsa craig_: a rock in the Firth of
Clyde; _grat his een bleert_: cried till his eyes were bleared;
_lowpin_: leaping; _linn_: waterfall; _sair_: sore; _smoor'd_:
smothered; _crouse and canty_: blythe and gay.


Poem 154.

Burns justly named this "one of the most beautiful songs in the Scots or
any other language.
" One verse, interpolated by Beattie, is here
omitted:--it contains two good lines, but is quite out of harmony with
the original poem.

_Bigonet_: little cap, probably altered from _beguinette_; _thraw_:
twist; _caller_: fresh.


Poem 155.

_airts_: quarters; _row_: roll; _shaw_: small wood in a hollow, spinney;
_knowes_: knolls.


Poem 156.

_jo_: sweetheart; _brent_: smooth; _pow_: head.


Poem 157.

_leal_: faithful; _fain_: happy.


Poem 158.

Henry VI. founded Eton.


Poem 161.

The Editor knows no Sonnet more remarkable than this, which, with 162,
records Cowper's gratitude to the Lady whose affectionate care for many
years gave what sweetness he could enjoy to a life radically wretched.
Petrarch's sonnets have a more ethereal grace and a more perfect finish;
Shakespeare's more passion; Milton's stand supreme in stateliness,
Wordsworth's in depth and delicacy. But Cowper's unites with an
exquisiteness in the turn of thought which the ancients would have
called Irony, an intensity of pathetic tenderness peculiar to his loving
and ingenuous nature. There is much mannerism, much that is unimportant
or of now exhausted interest in his poems: but where he is great, it is
with that elementary greatness which rests on the most universal human
feelings.